New Citi Rewards Partner – Transfer ThankYou Points to jetBlue

A new addition to the ThankYou Rewards program – Citi announced that card holders of eligible Citi credit cards can now transfer points to and from their jetBlue accounts.

Cardholders of the Cit ThankYou Premier, Citi Prestige, and Citi Preferred card will now be able to avail of this transfer partnership.

According to Citi’s points redemption page, ThankYou points can be transferred at a rate of 2:1 for Citi Preferred cardholders and 1.25:1 for Citi Premier and Prestige members, in 1,000 point increments.

Compared to transfer rate to other programs, this is pretty terrible – ThankYou points transfer to Flying Blue, KrisFlyer, and Etihad Guest (to name a few) at a rate of 1:1. In fact, the only other airline with an equally low transfer rate is Virgin America.

So – if you wanted to fly from New York (JFK) to San Francisco (SFO), on jetBlue on January 6, 2017, the lowest-priced blue ticket (coach) would cost you 11,200 TrueBlue points or 14,000-22,400 ThankYou points.

Meanwhile, if you flew the same route on Delta by transferring your points to FlyingBlue, it would cost you 12,500 points for a main cabin ticket, thanks to the 1:1 transfer ratio.

Of course, there are other qualitative factors in play here – you may have less of a selection of flights when selecting through Flying Blue, since you’ll be limited to the space Delta releases their partners, whereas you can select from numerous jetBlue flights. Also, you may simply prefer to fly on jetBlue over Delta.

If you’re keen on flying jetBlue and using your ThankYou points to pay for it, you’re better off using your points to pay for the cost of the tickets.

While the addition of True Blue as one of Citi’s transfer partners is a great addition to the overall ThankYou rewards program, the transfer ratio isn’t much to get excited about. Though you won’t get the most value out of your points, it’s not a bad option if you need to top off your account to avail of an award ticket.